Ukrainian official accuses Russia of making unacceptable demands at peace talks
The official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to make official statements, said it seemed as if the Russian delegation 'deliberately wants to throw nonstarters on the table in order to walk away from today's meeting without any results'.
He said the Ukrainian side reiterated it remained focused on achieving real progress — an immediate ceasefire and a pathway to substantive diplomacy, 'just like the US, European partners, and other countries proposed'.
It comes as Russia and Ukraine have been holding their first direct peace talks in three years.
They gathered in Istanbul for Turkish-brokered negotiations, but officials and observers expected the talks to yield little immediate progress on stopping the war.
A Ukrainian delegation led by defence minister Rustem Umerov sat down with a low-level Russian team headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, according to Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi, who published a photo of the meeting.
The officials present sat around a U-shaped table, with the Russians and Ukrainians facing each other.
A senior Ukrainian official close to the talks said that Kyiv's delegation was prepared to 'achieve a lot today' and with a real mandate to resolve key issues. The official said the outcome hinges on whether Moscow is equally serious.
Both countries have tried to persuade US President Donald Trump, who has expressed frustration over the slow progress, that they are eager to resolve the conflict amid extensive diplomatic manoeuvring.
The latest push to end the fighting got off to a rocky start on Thursday, when Russian President Vladimir Putin spurned an offer by Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to meet face-to-face.
Delegations from the two countries also flew to different Turkish cities and put together teams of significantly different diplomatic heft for possible talks.
Although expectations for a possible Putin-Zelensky meeting were low, the apparent lack of traction in peace efforts frustrated hopes of bold steps being taken in Turkey towards reaching a settlement.
The two sides are far apart in their conditions for ending the war, and Mr Trump said on Thursday during a trip to the Middle East that a meeting between himself and Mr Putin was crucial to breaking the deadlock.
On Friday, Mr Trump said a meeting with Mr Putin would happen 'as soon as we can set it up'.
'I think it's time for us to just do it,' Mr Trump told reporters in Abu Dhabi.
Comments on Friday by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov appeared to indicate that momentum for a summit is building, as Mr Peskov told reporters top-level talks were 'certainly needed'. But he noted that preparing a summit would take time.
Ukraine has accepted a US and European proposal for a full, 30-day ceasefire, but Mr Putin has effectively rejected it by imposing far-reaching conditions.
Meantime, Russian forces are preparing a fresh military offensive, Ukrainian government and western military analysts say.
Russia's invasion has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, the UN says, and razed towns and villages. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died, and probably a larger number of Russian troops, officials and analysts say.
A Friday morning drone attack on the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk killed a 55-year-old woman and wounded four men, Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, said. All the victims worked for a municipal utility.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Trump vetoed Israeli plan to kill Iran's supreme leader
President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, two US officials told Reuters on Sunday. 'Have the Iranians killed an American yet? No. Until they do we're not even talking about going after the political leadership,' said one of the sources, a senior US administration official. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said top US officials have been in constant communications with Israeli officials in the days since Israel launched a massive attack on Iran in a bid to halt its nuclear program. They said the Israelis reported that they had an opportunity to kill the top Iranian leader, but Trump waved them off of the plan. The officials would not say whether Trump himself delivered the message. But Trump has been in frequent communications with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked about Reuters report, Netanyahu, in an interview on Sunday with Fox News Channel's Special Report With Bret Baier, said: 'There's so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I'm not going to get into that.' 'But I can tell you, I think that we do what we need to do, we'll do what we need to do. And I think the United States knows what is good for the United States,' Netanyahu said. Trump has been holding out hope for a resumption of US-Iranian negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program. Talks that had been scheduled for Sunday in Oman were canceled as a result of the strikes. Trump told Reuters on Friday that 'we knew everything' about the Israeli strikes.
ITV News
an hour ago
- ITV News
PM to raise small boats with Macron at G7, as migrants continue to evade French police
Sir Keir Starmer says he will speak to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders at the G7 summit on stepping up efforts to stop small boat crossings across the English Channel. In a briefing with journalists before arriving in Canada for the meeting of the world's most advanced economies, the prime minister was asked if French authorities are doing enough to stop small boats. It comes after more than 900 people made the perilous crossing on Friday alone, taking the provisional annual total to 16,183. Despite existing security arrangements between the UK and France, ITV News reported last month on how French police are continuing to be outpaced by people smugglers. "Look, one of the things we've worked hard at is improving the relations with the French in relation to the work we both need to do to stop these boat crossings, which I'm determined we will absolutely bear down on," Starmer said. "Nobody should be making that journey. As a result of that we are seeing a much greater cooperation in northern France." However, the PM said he wanted to see "more cooperation" in northern France, adding: "It's an issue that I have raised and will raise again with President Macron. "It's one of the issues I'll be discussing - not just with Macron, actually, but discussing it with [Italy's] Giorgia Meloni, [Germany's] Friedrich Merz, and others. Asked if time had been set aside at the G7 for specific meetings on this issue, or if talks would only take part on the fringes, a spokesperson for the PM that immigration would be a discussion topic among leaders. They added that Starmer has "always been clear" this is an issue that "requires international partnerships and solutions to make a difference". The current provisional annual total of small boat Channel crossings, standing at 16,183 as of Saturday, is understood to be 42% higher than the same point last year and 79% up on the same date in 2023. Friday was not even the highest daily total so far this year, with 1,195 people arriving on Britain's shores on May 31. The UK is currently funding equipment for French police to stop these migrants, but, as ITV News observed in Dunkirk last month, many have been able to exploit stretches of beaches with no visible police presence. A Home Office spokesperson said: 'We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.'The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die as long as they pay, and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.'That is why this government has put together a serious plan to take down these networks at every stage, and why we are investing up to an additional £280 million per year by 2028-29 in the Border Security Command.'Through international intelligence-sharing under our Border Security Command, enhanced enforcement operations in northern France and tougher legislation in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, we are strengthening international partnerships and boosting our ability to identify, disrupt and dismantle criminal gangs whilst strengthening the security of our borders.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
G7 leaders gird for 'bulldozing' Trump after organizers bear-proof sylvan meeting spot in Canada
The last time world leaders gathered in Kananaskis, a bear tried to make its way into the 2002 meeting of the world's top eight economies and met an untimely end. This time, members of the G7 developing strategies to handle a different formidable figure: President Donald Trump. It will be Trump's first time setting foot on Canadian soil since saying Canada was 'meant to be' the 51st U.S. state and slapping 25 percent tariffs on Canada's steel. U.S. statehood polls abysmally here, and the issue sets up a gathering that is anything but typical. 'He's not acting like an ally right now when he's trying to disrupt our economy and threatening to take us over. Even if he says it's a joke, it's not a joke. You don't treat another sovereign country like that,' said Robert Mallach, a law professor at the University of Calgary. Mallach said other leaders should 'ignore' Trump at the summit, and said Canada's new Prime Minister Mark Carney took the best posture: 'Let's start protecting Canada by spending some money on defense. And let's realize we need allies other than America to do that.' Trump 'comes to the G7 running into allies who are quite frankly tired of the kind of threats and the kind of taunts that Trump has been engaged in,' said Brett Bruen, a former White House National Security Council official during the Obama administration. 'I think he's going to get a firsthand dose and dousing of reality, which is that these comments have consequences,' he said. 'I think this is one of those situations where Trump's bluster and bulldozing is going to run into some pretty hard, harsh realities on the international scene.' Still to be determined if Trump arrives ready for compromise, or feeling emboldened after watching a parade of MI Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles during the Army 250th military parade on his birthday in D.C. 'It certainly is going to put him in jingoistic mindset where he will feel, if not regal, at least replenished in his splendor, and that, as we've seen in the past, can lead to some really strange outbursts and sense of self-importance,' Bruen added. It is also unclear how much pre-planning fellow leaders have done. They could try to seek an 'intervention' on trade, although that could backfire. Canadian PM Mark Carney appears to have managed the situation deftly when he met with Trump in the Oval Office and declared his country not for sale while also pushing cooperation with Canada's more powerful neighbor. Now, he is holding out hope of a deal with the U.S. on trade and security. 'We're having intensive discussions in real time,' he said this week. Any agreement would progress compared to Trump's 2018 meeting with then-PM Justin Trudeau. That meeting ended in angry outbursts from Air Force One, with Trump calling Trudeau 'very dishonest and weak' and threatening to impose new auto tariffs. Russia's President Vladimir Putin attended the 2002 meeting, also in Kananaskis, during George W. Bush's presidency but got kicked out of the group after his 2014 annexation of Ukraine. This time, Putin's militarism will be a topic for other leaders to analyze, a day after Trump touted a forthcoming talk with him after Putin called with birthday greetings and the two talked about the war between Israel and Iran. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney made it through a fraught White House meeting with Trump, who repeatedly called his predecessor 'governor' A senior administration official previewing the summit sketched out the topics of discussion: 'trade in the global economy, critical minerals, migrant and drug smuggling, wildfires, international security, artificial intelligence and energy security.' The topic the official didn't mention are the deep tensions set off by Trump's repeated call to absorb the host country. The official did say that 'we appreciate Canada's cooperation in the planning of the summit and their choice of a great location in Canada for these important conversations.' Middle East security, with Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear program and military leadership and Iran firing missiles at Israel, is certain to soak up attention. French President Emmanuel Macron set the tone Sunday with a pointed visit to Greenland – a sprawling Arctic territory that Trump said the U.S. needed to obtain. 'I don´t think that´s something to be done between allies,' Macron said as he met with Danish PM Mette Frederiksen and Greenland's PM Jens-Frederik Nielsen. 'It´s important to show that Denmark and Europe are committed to this territory, which has very high strategic stakes and whose territorial integrity must be respected,' said Macron. As far as the actual bears roaming the G7 meeting spot in Kananaskis next to the Canadian Rockies, local officials have taken steps to avoid further mishaps. Among the security gear they trotted out early this month in advance of the event was a large bear trap. Local students were enlisted to pluck thousands of berries from area bushes so as to lower the temptations that might lure bears to try to crash the confab. That's what happened at the 2002 summit, when security officials used a bear-banger device to try to scare away a bear who got near delegates. It ended up falling out of a tree and dying.
